


the sun rises in the east

by besselfcn



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Background Jesse/Gabriel, Blackwatch Era, Dealing With Trauma, Hopeful Ending, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Injury, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Parent/Child Incest, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Referenced Suicide Attempt, Sibling Incest, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 21:03:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20378089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/besselfcn/pseuds/besselfcn
Summary: Genji misses home. He misses the way it smelled. The way it felt. He misses feeling grass under his toes. He misses the ice cold waters of the river that ran through the castle grounds. He misses being beaten. He misses the hazy feeling of a concussion after fighting back. He misses it because it was familiar, because it was all he ever knew, because he dreamed one day of it ending but never bothered to think of what would replace it; some sort of gnawing emptiness and a sense of losing his place. How’s that for understanding?





	the sun rises in the east

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry about the absolute litany of deeply depressing tags at the beginning of this work; almost none of it is explicitly shown. It's mostly about Genji trying to survive the aftermath of... [vaguely gestures]. That said, read with caution, and if there are additional tags I should add on, let me know. 
> 
> This work is related to, but not dependent upon, [dragons, north and south](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16524182). The writing of it was spurred on by a very kind comment left by [Nicky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nicky/pseuds/Nicky) on that work.

Genji is twenty-seven years old. It is 3:49 in the morning. When he wakes his heart rate is 151 beats per minute; his oxygen levels are 91 percent; his last REM cycle lasted 43 minutes. The numbers trawl up the corners of his vision like ticker-tape. 

He peels himself out of the bedsheets and gingerly steps towards the shower, his legs softly venting built-up coolant with each step. 

“Athena,” he says. “Soundproofing, please.”

She chirps. “Soundproofing activated.”

“Thank you,” he says. He can hear the whirring in the walls of the soundproofing coming online, little conical disks and white noise generators shifting beneath the drywall. 

He turns the shower on. It flows out of the tap at 32 degrees celsius. The water pressure is 81 pounds per square inch. 

He steps in, and he braces his hands against the walls, and he screams, and screams, and screams. 

\---

When he was fourteen he would do the same. Something similar. Something different.

He would stand in the waterfall showers in the family suite in Hanamura, steam billowing out of the cracks in the walls, water streaked with blood from a split lip and heat pressing into forming bruises, and he would scream. No soundproofing. No precautions. He knew they could hear--wanted them to hear--wanted them to listen while he slammed his fists against the glass like if he rattled the bulletproof walls hard enough they would shatter and he’d cut his palms on the shards. 

\---

McCree lifts his hat as Genji walks onboard the dropship. “Genji.”

Genji nods. “McCree.”

And McCree smiles at that, the way he always does. Genji knows he says it wrong, somehow. _McCree_, people tell him, _not McCree_. He doesn’t hear whatever difference they find so obvious. 

“Long flight today,” McCree says. Genji shrugs. Five hours to the south of Argentina. They’ve done much longer. 

McCree fidgets with a knife and a wooden block while they prepare for take-off; Genji furls and unfurls a shuriken from behind his knuckles. The job is only a two-man operation, a small intel-gathering mission at an omnic dive-bar. Omnics tend to trust Genji more than they do other humans, and everyone trusts McCree. 

“Hey,” McCree says, finally, as the noise of take-off dies down. “You doing okay?”

Genji fixes him with a radiant glare. “Why?”

McCree shrugs. “Look tired,” he says. “Just wondering if you slept okay.”

He doesn’t know how he could possibly look tired. All McCree can see of him now is his eyes, peering out over his faceplate, and they aren’t any more bloodshot than usual. No bags under his eyes. He made notes of it all. 

But McCree is strange like that, sometimes.

Genji shrugs. “Difficult dreams,” he says, and McCree nods like he understands. 

\---

Like he understands. Like any of them understand. 

They want to, they say. Angela says it often. Help me understand. She says, I’m listening. She says, I want to help you. 

His bones ache. The ones he doesn’t have. Like a fire that eats at him that he can’t put out. His body tells him that his blood pressure is too high and his heart will give out if he doesn’t calm down. He wants it to. He never wanted to die before, not like this, but now. But now it feels like borrowed time, every second, and he doesn’t know what he’s borrowing it for. How’s that for understanding? 

He misses home. He misses the way it smelled. The way it felt. He misses feeling grass under his toes. He misses the ice cold waters of the river that ran through the castle grounds. He misses being beaten. He misses the hazy feeling of a concussion after fighting back. He misses it because it was familiar, because it was all he ever knew, because he dreamed one day of it ending but never bothered to think of what would replace it; some sort of gnawing emptiness and a sense of losing his place. How’s that for understanding? 

He had a dream last night that his father tore his clothes off and held him down to the pagoda floor. 

How’s that for understanding? 

\---

Hanzo did. 

Without asking. Without needing to be asked. 

They had the same blood. The same soul. He felt it, when their bodies were pressed against each other. The dragons roiled under their skin, like an ancient prayer that needed to be spoken. 

\---

He was seven. Hanzo was ten. Their mother was alive, then, not that it mattered. She was drunk, usually. When he thinks of his mother he thinks of the acrid taste of rice wine. 

Hanzo was ten and he had bruises on his cheekbones already. From fighting, from not fighting. He was ten and he had a look in his eyes like if he could only be somewhere or someone else he could finally let out a long held breath.

Then he was twelve and Hanzo was fifteen and Genji’s the one with bruises on his wrists, his knuckles, his mouth, most days. Something inside Hanzo had gone quiet by then. Not dead, just quiet. Sleeping. Genji wishes he could sleep like that. 

He’s three. Hanzo is six. Hanzo says, father says he killed our grandfather. Genji says, why? Hanzo says, I don’t know, he just said it’s the way things are. 

The way things are is this: Genji is seventeen and he is begging Hanzo, twenty, to fuck him because it is the only thing that feels real, that feels safe, that feels like he doesn’t want to throw himself from the top of the castle walls if only it wouldn’t leave Hanzo all alone.

The way things are is this: Hanzo should kill Sojiro, dreams of it, nods when Genji begs him to, but he can’t and they both know he can’t because it would kill some part of Hanzo, too, like a parasite buried too deep in its host to be safely excised. 

The way things are is this: Genji is twenty-five. Hanzo is twenty-eight. The elders say, your brother is out of control, and Hanzo says yes because control is all he knows. 

\---

Genji loves him. He hates him. At night, the hand he doesn’t have reaches out to find him beneath the covers. 

\---

When they return from Argentina eight days later, Commander Reyes is waiting for them. McCree’s face lights up when he sees the man. Genji watches from a few paces back.

“How was it?” Reyes asks. 

McCree rolls his shoulders. “Fine,” he says. “Hot as hell down there. Felt good.”

It is -1 degree celsius outside in Zurich. It was 25 degrees celsius in Rio Gallegos. Genji prefers the Swiss winters. His faceplate almost burns against his cheeks when the weather is too hot. 

“Missing New Mexico this time of year?” Reyes teases. He nods to Genji as he walks closer. 

“Fuck, no,” McCree laughs. “I never fuckin’ miss New Mexico.”

Reyes scoffs. He puts his hand to McCree’s back, the thumb brushing the skin at the back of McCree’s neck. Genji watches the deliberate, precise movement as he applies the smallest bit of pressure for McCree to lean back into. 

“Good to have you back,” Reyes says, and McCree smiles like he’s the only thing Reyes has ever laid eyes on.

Genji heads for the training room.

Sometimes Reyes reminds him so much of Sojiro it makes his stomach twist. 

\---

his

he is

he

twenty-five years old, severe bodily trauma, blood volume three liters, we need more

get him into stasis

heart rate thirty-four

morphine 30 milligrams and--

oh, God, it hurts, he must be dying, he thinks he’s dying, someone’s telling him to calm down but his arm, his legs, his throat, all he remembers is blue and--

no no no no no not him

it wasn’t, it wasn’t

calm down, they’re saying, “Calm down, please, take a deep breath, we’ll give you more for the pain, we need you to hold still,” he can’t, he can’t, he wants--

the world goes green, then black.

\---

“Anija, anija, please, just-- just-- I need this--”

\---

In a few years, after aimless traveling, after giving up, after waking up in a Tibetan hospital with a stomach full of charcoal and an order to seek out guidance upon release, he’ll meet Zenyatta. 

He’ll think he’s full of shit, at first. He’ll ignore him. He’ll fight him. He’ll threaten to leave, and he won’t, and he won’t know why. 

He’ll crack, though, eventually. Not break--just split open along poorly healed seams, let them bleed out and then close again, thick and strengthened this time instead of raw and jagged. 

He’ll tell Zenyatta about Hanzo, and how he feels, and Zenyatta will tell him he does not have to pick one. 

But that’s years away.

\---

In a tiny barracks room in Switzerland, he wakes up from a dream of his mouth on a bright blue tattoo, and he wants to scream but he doesn’t have the energy for it. He doesn’t have the air in his lungs. He doesn’t have the willpower to fight the way he used to. 

So he turns on the shower ice-cold, and he stands with his head pressed to the tile, and he lets his hand drift between his legs. 

When he comes he slams his knuckles into the walls hard enough for them to break, but the cybernetics knit themselves together again. Like nothing’s ever happened.

**Author's Note:**

> On [twitter](https://twitter.com/besselfcn) to be yelled at.


End file.
